That Crazy Little Thing a debut novel by Kate Bracy has garnered wonderful reviews from readers and critics because of the author’s writing, the way she has developed her characters and how they explore issues of love — between friends, parents and their children, and adults looking for partners who understand them. Following Kate’s answers to my questions about writing her novel is an excerpt that I believe will make you want to read the whole story.

Sheila
When did you get the idea for this novel? How did the idea arrive for you?

Kate
Actually, I’d never written fiction, so this novel was something of a surprise. I’d been working on a memoir that my agent couldn’t sell.  She wanted to brainstorm some other ideas, and I suggested fictionalizing the memoir and telling it from another point of view. She liked that idea, so I did three chapters to show her, and she said, “Yes!  Let’s do this.” That was the beginning of the novel.

Sheila
How did you set about writing the story?

Kate
The first thing I did was outline the general story. I gave myself twenty chapters to tell it, and sketched it out. The funny thing was that I thought I was telling the story of Edward and Evelyn. But once I handed it to Melanie, Edward’s secretary, she completely hijacked the narrative and made it all about her. It was sort of hilarious and terrifying. It turns out that Melanie’s story was much more interesting than the one I thought I was going to tell, so I’m glad she took the reins.

Sheila
I think the writing works because you were willing to allow your characters to surprise you just as people do in real life. Tell us about other surprises did your characters brought to you.

Kate
There were so many surprises along the way. Once I had the story sketched out, little pieces would come to me during the day.  Bits of dialogue, or a piece of the puzzle that I hadn’t yet detailed. I’d be driving in my car and I would realize something and have to hang on to it until I could write it down. For example, I wasn’t sure how they were going to solve the mystery of who Donna’s son was, or how to find him.  Then one day during my commute I realized that Jessie, the teenager, would be the one to find him. When I floated back the question, “how does she do that?” it all came tumbling in.

Sometimes there were scenes or things the characters say that didn’t show up until I was typing. There is a scene where Donna is getting chemo, and the end of that scene was a total surprise to me. Suddenly the other people in the chemo room started talking, having overheard what Mel and Donna were saying. It was very touching and brought me to tears — and it was nowhere in my official “outline” that this would occur. It felt like magic. 

One of the real surprises was/were the letters at the end.  I had finished what I thought was my final final draft, and it washed over me that Donna had more to say.  I heaved a great sigh.  I really wanted to be done, but she was quite insistent.  So I came home from the little Coupeville coffee shop where I had hammered out the last revisions, and sat down and wrote the final chapter.  It was actually pretty wrenching for me.  But I believe they were necessary, and I needed to give Donna that opportunity.  I think it was right.  But it was a great, and not entirely welcome, surprise.

Sheila
Let’s backtrack a little bit. How did you actually plot the novel and tell us more about filling the characters out?

Kate
Well, as I said I hadn’t written any fiction before. But I had told a lot of stories with my essays. So once I’d done a rough outline, I just sat down every weekend and wrote a chapter. The outline would say something like, “Chapter 2.  Doctor’s Office: Donna divulges secret by admitting pregnancy.  Mel is surprised and puzzled.” And “In the Car: Donna tells Mel entire story. They play ‘Headlines’”  Really, it was as sketchy as that.  Then I would sit down and write the scenes as they occurred, just typing away as fast as I could to get it all down. By the time I was done, I had a complete chapter that led directly to the next chapter. I think all my work of writing essays in the past helped me take each chapter as its own little world, and finish one at a time.  Having the overall outline gave my subconscious all the info it needed to know what had to show up in each discrete section.

Sheila
I have to share some of their Headline game. Would that be all right? It is brilliant short-hand for exploring issues and allows you to keep a wonderful banter going between long-time friends Donna and Melanie through thick and thin:

Kate
Sure.

Sheila
I’ll share the Headline round Melanie and Donna banter in the chemo treatment room:

“Headlines,” I asked?

“Hmm. ‘Remington Woman Endures First Chemo Treatment?”

“Kind Nurse Encourages Local Writer.”

She tapped her lips thinking. “Woman Helps Friend Navigate Health Care System. Both Survive.”

The woman in her fifties put down the People magazine and said quietly, “High School Teacher Retires on Florida Sailboat.”

Then from the other woman across the room, “North County Mom Sees Daughter Graduate.” She reached out and took her daughter’s  hand.

“Upstate Patient Marks Seventieth Birthday.” The gray lady held her hand up in a fist. The daughter of the first woman walked over to  her and gave her a fist bump.

Donna and I watched, dumbfounded. Momentary sisterhood. She looked at me and shrugged. I nodded. “Go figure.”

The more I think about what you said about the outline and your subconscious, I think the subconscious made you write the outline you did so it could speak from its stores. I feel like the characters are people Kate Bracy knows, including herself. There is so much dimension in them all.  One reviewer (Blue Ink) gave you a starred review and wrote of your character Melanie:

Melanie is not only well-written, but she’s relatable and, in fact, carries the novel; it’s she that readers invest in, and thus, what keeps them interested from beginning to end. Women will immediately feel a connection to Melanie, sympathizing with her busy life and jaded attitude toward love. Character development is key in a book of this genre, and author Kate Bracy depicts both major and minor characters in a skillful manner.

I’d like you to tell us something more about this accuracy in writing about best girlfriends, mother-daughter strife and limerence — what it is and why it is folded into this story?

Kate
Like many women, and some men, I am fascinated with relationships and how our definition of “love” creates, distorts, destroys, enhances or salvages these relationships. When love is delusional, it pulls us into lives that we might not choose if we weren’t under its spell. But faithful, unconditional love — like Mel and Donna have for one another as friends – can save us and does.

I have friends from childhood who are as dear to me as sisters, and I’ve raised two daughters. Those experiences have been rich with broken-heartedness, forgiveness and humor. Mel is a little more naïve than I am, but her voice often reflects my experience with loving daughters and friends.

I’ve also been fascinated with limerence as a phenomenon.  All the recent brain research has begun to explain why we get so crazy and addicted when we experience that sort of attraction.  It was fun to place that concept in the middle of this story and describe it from the various points of view of the characters.  It was both delightful and therapeutic to watch someone else’s struggle with the “spell” of limerence.  I think it made some of their decisions more credible.  People who are limerent will totally get that.  People who aren’t will think it’s contrived.  But that reflects how people respond to love in real life, too.

Sheila
Well, I won’t give away which of the characters are in limerence. But I will say that Melanie’s interest in their love allows me to learn about limerence. Here’s another question: why did you choose the season winter for the story?

Kate
I would say that the story chose winter for itself. It begins in the fall, which is always nostalgic and a bit sad for me. The smell of wood fires and fallen leaves invariably makes me a little melancholy. That most of the story takes place in winter somehow fits the “this is the end of one story, but the beginning of another” that is at the heart of the novel.  Also, the town where it is set is based on my home town of Ogdensburg, NY, and winter is harsh and unrelenting. Donna’s story is pretty harsh and unrelenting, but not without hope. Winter has a sort of holding-your-breath quality that seemed just right for telling the tale.

Sheila
What else might you tell us about your writing process?

Kate
My years of writing paved the way for me to be able to write this longer work. All the self-reflection that is required of good essay writing really served me as I climbed into the characters to write the story. Keeping people’s attention, choosing the right details, knowing what the “punch line” was — all of those were familiar ground for me from my earlier writing. Sustaining them over such a long piece was the challenge, and being willing to have some generous beta readers tell me the truth really helped improve the quality of the writing. Having smart, kind, honest readers is like having a really good compass on a long voyage — they help you get to the right place, in good time, without too many side trips.

Sheila
Before I let you go, can you tell us how you are promoting your book?

Kate
As for promoting it, I wish I could say I had some readings lined up, but it’s been something of an uphill hike for me.  Every weekend I spend one day doing book promotion.  That means I send the book for reviews, enter it in award contests (most have stipulations about the date of publication, so that has to be done in the first year), take Melissa Foster’s classes on self-publishing and creating an online presence, and create author pages on sites like Amazon and Goodreads.  Now I will start looking at “blog tours” and probably set one up.  I also plan to offer the e-book at $ .99 just after Christmas for all those new Kindle Fire owners…   That’s what I’ve been able to manage so far, with my commuting and demanding day job that’s about what I can do.

Most heartening to me are the many people who have either come to me in person (people who work for Public Health) or who have written to me on Facebook or through my website.  They have really resonated to some element of the story, and feel supported by it.  One of my high school classmates sent a copy to his niece.  He got this note back, and forwarded it to me:

Hi Uncle B____, thank you for sharing the link to your friends first novel, I just finished it and am beyond moved….as if I had been given my own miracle…the strength to put one foot in front of the other and get on with my life, to believe that I deserve something great… It is an amazing story…I have been touched in the most indescribable way, at a time that I needed it the most. Thank you…thank you to your friend…take care…D_____.

That was very gratifying!

Sheila
And you were written about in a sweet article in your home town newspaper telling folks the novel describes falling in love near the St. Lawrence. Thank you for hitting the high points. Now let’s share the opening of your book for Writing It Real members to read.

I want them to know that after I received your book and read this opening, I continued reading the chapters every night after my work was finished even if that was a midnight. I very much looked forward to my time with your novel because I loved entering Melanie and Donna’s friendship and their world filled with just what the title promises: That Crazy Little Thing.

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I Wake Up
by Kate Bracy

[This excerpt is printed with permission of the author from  by Kate Bracy.]

I’m not a morning person. Neurologically speaking, you may as well talk to the toaster if you want a lively companion before ten a.m. I admit that I wake up slowly about pretty much everything – love included. In the best case, this might be some sort of blueprint for my life – a preview of the larger picture. I’ll start out kind of clueless and vague – unconscious almost, and gradually recognize what’s important, becoming more competent and functional as time goes on.

A year ago I would have said that “Love” is a deep and crazy mystery. I would have denied that romantic love was anything more than good marketing. I certainly would have scoffed at anyone who carried a torch for more than a decade, never knowing that she (or he) was beloved. I would have happily told you that daughters break your heart as thoroughly as ex-boyfriends, and I would have suggested that best friends are your surest bet for any kind of happy ending.

What I understand about “Love” now is that maybe it lives in places you have never visited before.  That sometimes it comes wearing a spikey hairdo and black boots, or a crooked tie and a business suit.  Sometimes you find it riding in a truck on a winter day, and sometimes love sits straight up in a hospital bed and makes you laugh so hard you wet your pants.  Again.  And maybe that having the chance to love someone through a dark moment is all the proof you need to become a believer.

I learned that some events sweep through like Dorothy’s tornado, turn everything around in a topsy-turvy gale, and set it back on the ground facing a whole new direction.  That’s how it happened last fall.  Three short months that left me a shaken girl.

You go chugging through your days, thinking things are one way, or maybe even not thinking at all. Then something happens that makes you do a fancy little double take on your life and suddenly you’re signing up for meditation lessons and making a trousseau quilt for your daughter even if she hates you. Something really sad makes you reach into that duffel bag of a heart of yours and start feeling for a piece of joy that you can bring out and look at. Wouldn’t matter what it was, just something to make it worth watching the clock tick by.

I didn’t expect to find that little piece of joy. You might even say that it found me. And here I am, smiling at odd moments – happy in a way I don’t understand. Rolling my eyes at my daughter Jessie instead of trying to find a murder weapon.  Humming under my breath, almost forgetting that there were times when I felt as though Mercury would be in permanent retrograde in my astrological chart.

How did I get here?  Well, that’s the thing.  I had to come face-to-face with death to decide to walk arm-in-arm with life.  I came here kicking and screaming, only to find it’s exactly where I want to be.  It reminds me of the Sesame Street story I used to read to Jessie when she was tiny, about The Monster at the End of This Book.  Grover narrates and is terrified because he has heard that there is a monster at the end of the book.  He tries to get the reader to stop turning pages, lest they face the dreaded monster.  Finally, when all efforts to stop the page-turning have failed, he is forced to see the monster.  And it is he.  Whew!  No biggie.  Just furry loveable old Grover after all.  And that’s where I am now, marveling at that crazy little thing called “love” that was waiting at the end of the book all along.

We’ll start on that day last fall when the leaves rustled under my window.  It was just another day.  It was before I learned that my friend Donna was holding secrets. Before sitting in a chemo center reminded me that life is quick, and that today is your best shot at every kind of love, so keep your eyes open.

Wake up.

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You can read another interview with Kate done for the World Literary Cafe.

Kate maintains a website and an author page on Facebook–both very much worth visiting.